Editor,

A recent “Feedback” letter by Mr. Ferrer denied the fact that Trump is “worshipped by his followers.” We all have seen many of his followers refer to him as “the second coming of Christ.” Just look at any of the Trump rallies and observe the merchandizing of this concept. There are hundreds of interviews with Trump followers who compare him with Christ even though he is the least “Christlike” figure to ever emerge from the political right. None of his policies reflect Christian values and none of his followers are Christians who believe we should “treat our neighbors as ourselves.”

The Christian Nationalists who support him are clearly much more “Nationalist” than they are Christian. Imagine some other politician selling signed Bibles, overpriced watches and worthless imaginary internet “tokens.” By definition this is blasphemy. Trump’s followers have become a cult and he milks it for all it can provide him in grift, fame and power and all the free golf he can play, paid for by the American taxpayer.

There is no disputing Trump won the election, though he still insists it was “invalid” because he was “cheated of votes” somewhere. He has spent the last eight years questioning the election system and systematically weakening it and destroying confidence in it. His lawsuits have put the election system in question which was his intent should he have lost. In 2024, Trump won just 47.9% of the popular vote, far less than Obama, Bush and even Joe Biden in 2020 (51.3%). As far as the antiquated Electoral College system Trump won only six more Electoral College votes than Biden in 2020 (312 versus 306). This is far from “winning by a lot” as Mr. Ferrer insists and far from a “mandate.”

And by the way, Trump lied about Project 2025 because the optics were so bad. Claiming he “knew nothing about it,” he has implemented many of the tenets of this right-wing plan and hired many of the contributors for this destruction of the democratic system of checks and balances. In addition, he has formed an un-holy alliance with Elon Musk who threatens to destroy many of the functions of the federal government and remake it with all of the power and control going to the executive branch (Trump himself). It is an unprecedented coup just as January 6th was unprecedented and yet he gets away with it.

Charles Niedzialkowski

Oak Harbor